Page:

It also rather depends what you buy it for. If you want to run OSX (which is really the point of that machine), it's not like you have many options. If you plan to run Windows or Linux I would indeed wonder why you'd buy a MacBook - there are some impressive alternatives out there.

Re: Apple Macbooks are basically pointless to steal.

1. The internal media isn't soldered, it's on a PCIe daughter card. However there are no third party upgrades as of yet.

Hmm. So you could use a second Mac to access it by swapping the board. I know you can repartition the disk once you have it in terminal mode, but it's at least not for the casual thief. Now you have me thinking of super glue..

2. No need to set a firmware password anymore, Find My Mac - part of OS X, will prevent booting from other media - it just displays the lost notice form the original owner.

You can also set a login message, but that is not used if you use Filevault. Duh. However, "Find my Mac" creates possible tracking risks - not everyone's favourite.

3. You could set a "Finders Fee" notice in Find My Mac too.

As per 2 - not always of use, and I suspect it needs a network first before it will display that. I can see this of use to some people, but I'm personally not a great fan of electronic stalking. You never know just who is using that data and for what.

Re: Run by an arse

Re: Regarding lack of brains*

It's called neurofeedback, and it can do some pretty nifty things, like assisting people with ADHD.

Mind you (pardon the pun), I would stick to the read-only stuff. Apparently they're now experimenting with injecting signals, but I'm personally not too keen on that idea, and not just because I keep getting flashbacks to an old movie with a scene where a guy is yelling "he's aliiiiive" :).

I think it's a good thing that this apparent myth of invulnerability got cracked, because it ensures people go back to actually paying attention to security. This whole "it can't happen to me" feeling was dangerous IMHO.

Having said that, I still prefer a Unix derivative over Windows but that has more to do with expertise. I know what to look for to make a Unix derivative safe, whereas someone who works with Windows on a daily basis as sysadmin is always going to be better than me at keeping that platform clean.

Safe distance

The definition of "safe" distance is an issue here. Is that safe to stop for the computer, taking into account grip, speed and calculated vehicle mass, or is that safe for the passengers, for whom this may feel like the computerised equivalent of throwing out an anchor?

It very much depends if smoothness is part of the programming. I know enough "digital drivers" to know that safe does not equal comfortable. Personally, I tend to plan ahead so my driving is reasonably smooth - it's a bit of a hangover from the fact that I'm also licensed to drive HGVs where smooth speed changes are important for fuel consumption and risk management.

Re: permissions

At least on iOS, you can (out of the box) deny specific permissions to apps.

Ah, but dialling isn't one of them - instead, iOS always requires user permission for a call precisely because abuse gets picked up too late (it's a second layer of security if the app screening process didn't catch it). There are couple of things like that in iOS, you can also not intercept an incoming SMS unlike in Android. The latter is a bit of a shame because it makes encrypted SMS like the stuff from Whispersys impossible.

However, I wonder if this may be the cause of the latest iOS update to 8.1.3 - most of the CVEs were about exceeding bounds to potentially execute malicious code.

I don't quite buy this, though - you must be rather deep into an app's code to make it do something COMPLETELY different in a controlled way via an inserted ad, that's an awful lot of barriers to overcome just to clock up some premium rate profit. If you're that talented I'm sure there are more interesting targets out there. Something grinds here (sorry).

Re: MSPaint equivalent?

There isn't really an explicit separate program bundled, basic image editors are more hidden in other things like Preview and iPhoto (I think Keystone also has a few mods).

I installed Pixelmator. Not only does that have quite good editing resources, it also has a (somewhat too well hidden) vector mode. It's a good example of Mac software that beats the bejeezus out of far more expensive packages (and it's able to handle some Photoshop resources).

If you occasionally need to go beyond the basics but don't really need full blown Photoshop I'd recommend Pixelmator - also because you can properly try before you buy. It's IMHO worth the money.

If you want it free I concur with another commentard: Seashore will do you fine. I just stopped using it after I installed the above :).

Re: Time for the downvotes, I guess

You remind me of a quote:

"Thus, for example, tanks, battleships and bombing planes are inherently tyrannical weapons, while rifles, muskets, long-bows, and hand-grenades are inherently democratic weapons. A complex weapon makes the strong stronger, while a simple weapon — so long as there is no answer to it — gives claws to the weak." - "You and the Atom Bomb", Tribune, 19 October 1945

That was written by one Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell.

Re: Bose noise-cancelling headphones.

There is just one little gotcha with noise cancelling earphones on long flights.

The "standard" crappy sets you get to listen to need a certain volume to work, so you dial it up, say, 7 (on a scale of 0 to 10) to get a level where you can follow a movie over the background noise.

When you plug in a decent noise cancelling set, you can turn it down to about 4 or so and you can follow it with good clarity, and you settle down to follow it either to the end, or until you doze off. AND THEN THEY MAKE A CABIN ANNOUNCEMENT, WHICH IS PUT THROUGH AT VOLUME LEVEL 8 TO MAKE SURE EVERYONE HEARS IT. Owwww.

On the plus side, it's highly unlikely you'll sleep through any cabin announcement..

Yup, OSX is safe too if you have installed patch 54 (https://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/bash/bash-3.2-patches/bash32-054), which was released late on the 27th of September. Otherwise you'll have to add patch 54, recompile and replace the binaries as before.

From what I've seen, most HOWTOs on the topic have been updated to incorporate patch 54 - nice to see that people are on the ball.

Re: Whilst you're right in fact

I think you're casting it too black and white. With ~$50Bn in the bank - that reduces the attack surface in all sorts of ways not applicable for smaller companies.

There has got to be massive tech industry pressure behind the scenes to kill off the MS vs DOJ Dublin data center case.

Sadly not. The problems for US based companies run a lot deeper than a couple simple court cases can fix. I would be extremely surprised if MS wins this other than via some seriously creative lawyering because the problems are pretty fundamental, and have been in the making for about 2 decades. That's not going to be fixed overnight. That's not even going to be fixed in a year - it'll take a decade, and that's assuming there is a WILL to fix it as some are making good money off it.

Re: Don't get too upset

How did they block Skype if someone was tunneling? Did they block tunnels?

Taking the physics into account they probably don't have to - the overall latency will pretty much kill voice capability. IMHO this is also why they don't offer any voice calls, there is no way to get VoIP stable on such a circuit and the complaints about quality would pretty much kill off the service and any profit before they'd even got a return on investment. Smart decision.

Re: Kaboom?

Re: surely the lesson here is...

The cloud use that amuses me most is cloud based password safes. There is only one I trust in that regards, and that's because it was screened by people I know personally to do a good job of it - but even then I am NOT using it..

Oh, btw, iTunes backups are also a risk if you don't enable encryption, and I have frankly no idea how good that crypto is - you best enable bootup passwords and full disk encryption if you really want to be sure, and that is assuming you bother to shut down the device after you've used it.